Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

741–750 of 1001 posts

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#741

Post by hedora »

cycomanic wrote: post #721

These discussions remind me so much of the US discussions about federal ID documents as verification. There's a vocal portion of people which opposes any solution because "privacy, government overreach, surveillance ...". So instead of a solution like e.g. zero-proof age verification, that tries to minimize intrusions on privacy, the result is the worst of all worlds, maximum surveillance (but I guess it's ok if it i…

For there to be a solution, there needs to be a problem. These bills are not addressing a problem. Assume the online platform has a video feed of my kid, or their SSN, or a zero-knowledge-proof of age, or whatever.

Now, what will the platform do with it? Concretely? As in: Name one bad outcome a reasonable parent would care about that's prohibited under these bills. If the bad thing happens due to willful negligence, then there needs to be some actual material consequence to someone at the platform provider.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#742

Post by Quarrelsome »

redm wrote: post #654

The question I keep coming back to regarding the recent debate around age verification is "Why now?" I'm 47, and I started using the internet in my early teens through BBS gateways. I've seen every age of the Internet, and there's always been widely available pornographic materials. Why all of a sudden is this a crisis? Perhaps I'm missing something?

its because we hired a generation of the greatest minds to build habit forming and addictive products. So now we're seeing signs of how bad that is for children's mental health prior to their ability to consent to that.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#743

Post by wussboy »

bluGill wrote: post #569
SiempreViernes wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I see the crossover between activities performed at home and problems of car centric street design and the resulting poor pedestrian traffic safety?

If I have to watch my kids 100% of the time they can't walk to the park. Nothing to do with street design - most suburbs have a park a safe walk near any house. That kids are not walking there is nothing to do with street design.

Your kids not walking there has everything to do with street design. Check out Not Just Bikes on YouTube for why and how.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#744

Post by [deleted] »

hedora wrote: post #698
redm wrote: post #654

The question I keep coming back to regarding the recent debate around age verification is "Why now?" I'm 47, and I started using the internet in my early teens through BBS gateways. I've seen every age of the Internet, and there's always been widely available pornographic materials. Why all of a sudden is this a crisis? Perhaps I'm missing something?

This is outlined in Project 2025 (which I have not read). As I understand it, the age verification laws are part of a three pronged plan to eliminate privacy, freedom of speech and freedom of expression online. The goals being to expand current police abuses to include LGBTQ++, reporters, democrats, non-whites, non-christians, demonstrators, etc. It all is predictable and makes perfect sense if you assume the goal is…

[deleted]

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#745

Post by masklinn »

abustamam wrote: post #730
sieep wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just look at the freaking mess that is trying to proof your identity in the US. Care to elaborate? I'm not sure what's a mess about a driver's license, social security card. I've never once had any issue with my identity.

I think they're talking about proving your identity to a non govt entity. A few things that come to mind are any platform with a KYC, they require you to upload your ID and assure you they're secure with a little lock icon.

Even proving your identity to a government entity is non-trivial, as can be seen by the administration trying to use that as a new poll tax.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#746

Post by gclaramunt »

sieep wrote: post #723
cycomanic wrote: post #721

These discussions remind me so much of the US discussions about federal ID documents as verification. There's a vocal portion of people which opposes any solution because "privacy, government overreach, surveillance ...". So instead of a solution like e.g. zero-proof age verification, that tries to minimize intrusions on privacy, the result is the worst of all worlds, maximum surveillance (but I guess it's ok if it i…

> Just look at the freaking mess that is trying to proof your identity in the US. Care to elaborate? I'm not sure what's a mess about a driver's license, social security card. I've never once had any issue with my identity.

You must not live in the US or have very odd patterns, I'm positive a majority of the US population have free credit monitoring due to the multiple SSN data leaks.

The situation is so bad that the SSA has to explicitly state: "Social Security card is not an identification document" https://www.ssa.gov/blog/en/posts/2023-03-23.html

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#747

Post by throwaway290 »

hedora wrote: post #722
xvector wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly everyone I know that saw this stuff turned out just fine We do not need to turn society into a police state because we're afraid the next generation might not be able to handle what we handled fine for the most part Edge cases should not dictate the removal of our freedom & rights

These bills are specifically exempting platforms that distributed the ISIS videos (like meta), and including platforms that did not. apt-get install isis-beheading-vids doesn't work on any Linux distribution I've seen, and it's not like Microsoft or Apple were preloading them on laptops. These bills have nothing to do with online safety. They exist purely to establish a police state (that will currently be run by a c…

"bills trying to fix it are bad" != "the problem doesn't exist"

if you agree that online safety problem exists then suggest better solution. if you disagree then keep on living in a fantasy world

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#748

Post by BTAQA »

The zero-knowledge proof angle is interesting but the real barrier is implementation

most platforms won't voluntarily adopt privacy-preserving verification when the surveillance version gives them more data. Regulation would need to mandate the privacy-preserving approach specifically, not just "verify age somehow.

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#749

Post by [deleted] »

sieep wrote: post #723
cycomanic wrote: post #721

These discussions remind me so much of the US discussions about federal ID documents as verification. There's a vocal portion of people which opposes any solution because "privacy, government overreach, surveillance ...". So instead of a solution like e.g. zero-proof age verification, that tries to minimize intrusions on privacy, the result is the worst of all worlds, maximum surveillance (but I guess it's ok if it i…

> Just look at the freaking mess that is trying to proof your identity in the US. Care to elaborate? I'm not sure what's a mess about a driver's license, social security card. I've never once had any issue with my identity.

[deleted]

Re: Meta Platforms: Lobbying, dark money, and the App Store Accountability Act

#750

Post by otterley »

swiftcoder wrote: post #731
sieep wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just look at the freaking mess that is trying to proof your identity in the US. Care to elaborate? I'm not sure what's a mess about a driver's license, social security card. I've never once had any issue with my identity.

> I'm not sure what's a mess about a driver's license, social security card Neither of those are accepted by various states' voter id laws, nor can you reliably board an airplane with them since RealID. The only foolproof identity card in the US appears to be a passport (which, you know, global federal identity card... exactly what the folks against universal ids dislike)

My research suggests that all U.S. states that require identification at the polls accept a driving license as a form of valid photo ID. Are you aware of any that don’t?
Post reply on HN